Dr. Barnes is the Acting Lead for the Advanced Human Support Technology Program at NASA Headquarters. Before coming to NASA headquarters, he held an NRC Post-doctoral research fellowship at the NASA Ames Research Center and was a faculty member at Northland College in Wisconsin. His academic training is in biological sciences and ecology. He has an undergraduate degree in Biology and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science from Indiana University, and a Ph. D. in Plant Physiology from Utah State University. His research interests have been in photomorphogenic responses of certain crop plants (such as wheat and soybeans) grown in controlled environments.